Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker

In the spring of 2000, Harper's magazine sent James McManus to Las Vegas to cover the World Series of Poker. But when McManus sets foot in town, the lure of the tables is too strong: he proceeds to risk his entire Harper's advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. Only with actual table experience (he tells his skeptical wife) can he capture the hair-raising subtleties of poker that determines the world champion.

Cowboys Full

From James McManus, author of the best-selling Positively Fifth Street, comes the definitive story of the game that, more than any other, reflects who we are and how we operate. Cowboys Full is the story of poker, from its roots in China, the Middle East, and Europe to its ascent as a global - but especially an American - phenomenon.

Physical: An American Checkup

Physical negotiates the political and medical forks in the labyrinth of our health care system and calls for sanity and enlightenment in the stem-cell research wars. It's a no-holds-barred, wrenching, often hilarious portrait of the looming mortality of a privileged generation that can't believe the party's winding down, if not over.

The New Yorker (February 4, 2008)

There are eight articles in this edition: "The Minsky Moment", by John Cassidy; "Aces", by James McManus; "Beppe's Inferno", by Tom Mueller; "Death in Georgia", by Jeffrey Toobin; "I'll Be a Monkey's Agent", by Paul Rudnick; "Welling Up", by Alex Ross; "Patients, Patients", by Nancy Franklin; and "Young and Restless", by David Denby.